I know this topic in general has been asked before on past entries, yet I think my question to it differs from what has been asked before. Also, I don’t know if this is the right place to post this question. I thought first of posting in the Lucid Adventures but didn't felt it belonged there. Likewise, I don't know if it belongs here as well.

I have always been curious about something regarding lucid dreams. It basically boils down to when I had my first (unintentional) lucid dream when I was about 10 years old. I have to point out that even though lucid dreaming was at that time (I think it was 2003-2004) already a proven scientific term and all, I still never knew that you could be aware and control your dreams at night.

In my dream, I was having a nightmare where I was being chased by some entity. I was running through a path of bushes (a similar scene like the one in “The Shining,”) in the dark hours of the night. At some point in the dream, I became aware that I was dreaming, but because I hadn't heard in my life about lucid dreaming, I just wanted to wake myself up to spare me the frightening scenario. The really scary thing though, was that I couldn't wake myself up!

It’s kind of difficult to explain but, as I was trying my hardest to wake myself up, I was aware of both my dream self and my real body lying in bed. I still followed the script of my nightmare, (you could say I was at a very low-lucid level) yet I was aware all the time that I was dreaming. The weird thing though was that in my mind I tried to shout, move and basically implore my real self to wake up, but to no avail. Even as I was dreaming, I could feel SP in action. I tried shouting but my lips wouldn't move, I tried moving yet my body stayed the same, I even tried willing desperately to wake up, but still nothing happened. It wasn't until after some strong tingling sensations that I managed to wake up. So in other words, it was like I was watching both my dream self and my real self, but I was none of the two. I was like an inner awareness between both bodies, yet I could feel my dream body running for its life, and my real body resting in bed. Also, I couldn't wake up and felt SP in my real self at the same time that I was dreaming.

I know there’s nothing to fear about SP, that is not the point to my question, nor about nightmares or lucid nightmares for that matter.

My question is: have you ever experienced such awareness where you could feel both your dream self and your real self at bed, but you were none of the two? Is it something that you chose or something which you cannot control? Likewise, have you ever experienced SP during a dream, or while you were trying to wake yourself up? And lastly, whether you’re inexperienced or have had many lucid dreams recorded in your life; do you still find yourself in rare and unexpected situations where you can’t wake yourself up, even though you wish and will for it to happen? Or is it something that, with experience, can almost become a trivial situation to resolve?

Posts: 104Joined: 10 Jul 2012Last Visit: 14 May 2014
LD count: More and more
Location: I was there all along...

Posted: Tue 30 Jul, 2013

Hey There,

Good read, thanks! Several times have I been in a state between dream and SP where I could sense both, but never have I felt myself as truly being a third observer to this. It sounds very interesting. I'm afraid I have no real way of understanding what it was like or what caused it. Would you mind trying to explain this state in greater detail?

I've experienced SP during dreams a couple of times because i was waking up but wanted to stay in my dream so badly (quite the opposite of your situation ). I've tried waking myself up from dreams only a few times, I think I ended up in some form of SP every time, this is to be expected: You're conscious as you wake up, and as you wake up you abandon the dream then have to abandon the SP to wake up. Now this happens every night but because you are forcing yourself out of the dream the gap between awaking from the SP and Dream is slightly bigger while this would normally occur almost simultaniously (Just to make this clear, I'm by no means an expert on this subject and have no sources to back up my claims, this is simply what I believe is the most logical explanation)

It get's easier to exit dreams and SP over time. Maybe it's possible, but I've never been able to exit a dream without experiencing sleep paralysis

I hope this helps

Current LD goal(s): Got 10 ld goals in one dream! Now it's time to put the Dreamclock to the test!

Sure thing, I'll try to explain this state I'm talking about to the best of my ability.

To put it simply, it's like I'm standing in between my real self lying at bed, sleeping, and my dream self acting in the dream. Like watching two different movies in two different screens at the same time. Regarding the observing state in which I am, it seems as if I lack a sense of physical body. I just simply am there, watching both scenes play.

So, for instance, in my nightmare, I was watching how my dream self ran away from the scary entity that was chasing me. In other words, I was watching my dream from a third person perspective. Now this is where it gets tricky. The best I can explain this is, as I'm watching the dream scene unfold, out of the corner of my mind's eye I am able to see at the same time my real body sleeping in bed. Now the odd part is that in this specific view the perspective changes, meaning that I see my real body from a 1st person viewpoint. The weirdest thing from all this though, is that my real body nor my dream body represent me. I mean, they are really me, but I don't feel specifically tied to any of the two.

Now the strangeness does not end there. You see, even though I am not one nor the other, I can still feel what both of my selfs are experiencing. That is to say that I can feel my steady breathing as I lie in bed, the softness of the mattress below me, my head resting on my pillow, etc. At the same time, I feel my dream self's frantic breathing, the adrenaline pumping through my body as I run for my life, etc. So it sort of acts like a paradox: I am not my dream body nor my real body, yet at the same time I kind of am.

To summarize, its like if I'm on a room watching two different screens at the same time. Like watching security cams of my dream and of the waking world. The first shows my dream scene from a 3rd person perspective, whereas the latter does so from a 1st person panorama.

As for the SP situation, I can see how transitioning from a dream to SP to being completely awake might work. It surprised me though, because I never heard you could experience such a feeling while actually dreaming. From the countless times I have seen people ask or comment on the subject, most people seem to experience it when waking up from a dream. So the reason I saw it happen while dreaming really stroke me as odd. (Again this is from my own experience and from what I've seen. Perhaps to other people this may be absolutely normal to feel SP while dreaming. Maybe it's a known fact, and I just didn't researched well on the subject.)

Now, lets ignore SP for a moment. Why do you think some dreams result hard to wake up from (if this really happens)?

From what I've experienced, this seems to relate more on nightmares than in any other types of dreams for that matter. I would understand the difficulty with it when having a ND. But, in this case, being that it was a lucid dream, it appeared as if the dream itself didn't respond to the commands or wishes I had given it to end and wake myself up.

I know that in this case in particular, being that I didn't know about LD at that time, you could appoint that as a cause for a lack of control of my dream world and thus, the reason it being non responsive to my claims. Add to that my lack of experience as of this moment on LD (I haven't had one on purpose. Still working on it though. ), I cannot delve further into this topic for now.

So it sparked my curiosity as to, why did it happened? Does knowing what lucidity means in a dream, automatically solves the problem of ending it whenever you wish it to end? You say there's a gap present, a transition between the dream and waking up from it. Is this perhaps the reason as to why maybe the dream won't end instantly when you want it to? Lastly, are nightmares the only type of dream this situation can occur, or have you experienced it as well on LDs in general?

Thanks for your response Shadow of a Day, learned a little bit more about LDs and dreams in general.

Posts: 104Joined: 10 Jul 2012Last Visit: 14 May 2014
LD count: More and more
Location: I was there all along...

Posted: Thu 01 Aug, 2013

Thank you for your detailed Answers and Questions!

Wow, your story sounds very odd, Perhaps you had some sort of OBE or an AP, Since you describe how you really felt like a observer.

Why are Nightmare difficult to wake up from? I believe I have the answer to this.
(Source on Nightmares)
A Nightmare generally occur in the late hours of your sleep, this is when your REM-cycles are at their longest. Normally when somebody get's spontaniously lucid it's when they are about to wake up and we already get a little more conscious, just enough to become lucid (That's why we often have those 1-minute ld's and such and then wake up )
However, Nightmares are often very vivd and schocking dreams and give you a good opportunity to get lucid in de middle of your REM-sleep. So at this time your body isn't ready to wake up yet, it might still have 30 minutes left on the clock so to speak. This makes it rather difficult to wake up as you're forcing your body.
Also, A big factor of nightmares is in fact the feeling we aren't in control and they are very stressfull, this could also influance our control on the dream.

So I think that the moment in REM when you actually get lucid is a key factor to your ability to wake up, in all dreams and not only nightmares

I have to say, Dreamcontroll is a rather difficult subject to speculate on since not that much is known about it. Yet again, another key factor in waking ourselves up appears to be expectations. On this forum and others, people generally tell me that your expectations are everything. If you yell 'Fly' in a dream but don't believe it could work, it probably won't. This is what I was also talking about with Nightmares and stress, feeling out of control. You don't really believe it in a nightmare so it becomes a lot more difficult.

Yet, even when you expect things to work in dreams they don't always do. My control in dreams changes every time. For some reason I can almost always summon shooting stars and meteorites, but teleporting never works the way I intend it to. and then in other dreams, I can fly around but nothing else.. Perhaps somebody else could elaborate on this

I hope this made sense, sorry for my spelling, I'm in a bit of a hurry and don't really have time to check it all. Good luck!

Current LD goal(s): Got 10 ld goals in one dream! Now it's time to put the Dreamclock to the test!

It does make sense when you put it like that. So the correlation between the REM stage in which you're at, and the amount of time you have before ending that REM stage and enter light sleep, might explain the difficulty in waking up from a dream.

I have to point out though, that I woke up from my nightmare in the middle of the night. I wonder if the same rules would apply to this as well, knowing that REM cycles at that time are shorter than the ones experienced in the morning. Would 5-10 min. still be enough to prevent one from instantly waking up?

***

Regarding my experience, I still think it falls more under a LD. I don't know much about OBEs, but, aren't they supposed to happen on a realm similar if not identical to the waking world, only that one finds him/herself on a higher vibration? I don't know if this is possible but, can you go from a LD to an OBE or AP? If such thing is indeed possible, it might explain the awareness, and the feeling of SP while dreaming. I might have been caught up in between a dream and an OBE.

The other theory I can come up with is, that maybe it wasn't an OBE, but instead, I was caught up somewhere between the dream world (possibly like you said, with some time left before ending my REM period but not that far away,) and waking up to the waking world. That might also explain both the awareness and the SP.

In the end, I might have to experiment on it when lucid in order to verify whether it was one or the other. Thanks for the response! These are the reasons as to why lucid dreaming, or OBEs, or AP interest me so much. As many have said before, it's still uncharted territory waiting for it to be explored and discovered.